


All the colours of the world (could not explain our love)

by spookyserpent



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Assassins, F/M, Friendship, Love, M/M, Witchcraft, the avengers being the avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 09:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19148149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyserpent/pseuds/spookyserpent
Summary: Life is hard and horrible and cruel but there is beauty to every being. Everyday, colours are splashed before our eyes and we don’t take in how wonderfully astonishing that is.Alexandra Graves lives her life in colours and somehow finds herself two soulmates, in the form of a blond idiot and a brunet assassin.





	All the colours of the world (could not explain our love)

**Author's Note:**

> The reason behind this was when my counsellor suggested I take a break from people and just watch the world. 
> 
> This led to me looking at everything in extreme detail and revelling in the beauty of colours. 
> 
> I also love Clint Barton and Bucky Barnes so yeah. 
> 
> Unbeta-ed as always

Flint. 

Flint grey clouds watch when she is born. It’s a cold, windy, autumn day and her mother coos when she pops out with dark, cinnamon curls and even darker hazel eyes. 

The hospital room is a slightly lighter flint, with a splash of cream on the bed spreads. Her mother signs her name on her birth certificate, Alexandra Graves, in curvy letters, grinning at the child clutched to her breast. 

Years later, she looks back on the grey day and finds it fitting. Grey is plain, normal, boring. Grey is what the world looks like to those who never experience the good side. Grey is everything she is not. 

 

Bone. 

It’s a sunny day in June when she first bares witness to the bone-white spirits. 

She’s outside, plucking at grass between her chubby fingers, wide eyes watching her mother and the latest man she’s trying to convince. The blindingly hot sun is making her sweat even from her place hidden beneath the camisole and she notices a woman approach, face bleached of colour and a splatter of red stained on the side of her head. 

She coos in Swedish and pulls funny faces, causing the two-year old to giggle uncontrollably. 

As the years past, more and more spirits introduce themselves to her. Some offering comfort, some offering harm. All seeking someone who would finally notice. 

That day, her mother’s face had faded into the bone-white of the spirits as she understood just what her daughter had become. 

 

Crimson. 

Warm, crimson blood stains her pale skin red at just eight. It is not the first time watching someone die but it is her first time committing the act. Despite it being her first, it most definitely is not her last. 

The Coven say it’s a good thing, that she’s learning, that she’s evolving. They don’t know about the spirits because her mother, who’s been gone for two years now, said not to tell anybody. Nobody can be trusted. 

Twenty years later, crimson flames burn through her house, releasing dark smoke into the grape sky. It’s addicting, the sight, the burning smell but she finds herself fleeing from the scene all the same with a child hitched on her hip. 

She names the child Kenna Graves and isn’t surprised when she throws a tantrum at age three and crimson flickers between her chubby fingers. 

 

Emerald. 

Sharp, calculating, emerald eyes pierce her far more than the dagger digging into her side ever could. The Черная Вдова stares at her, judging and scrutinising, her blood red curls matching her cherry red lips. 

In seconds (too long really but the Widow is good) their positions are reversed with Alex clutching the dagger. The Widow shifts, baring her pearly white teeth in an animalistic snarl but Alex doesn’t move. 

Beneath her skin, her veins thrum with power, warming her up in a comforting gesture of reassurance. Even if the Widow is a better fighter, Alex has abilities. 

She tells her to stop fighting, that she won’t kill her but the Widow keeps muttering in broken Russian, angry and confused and in pain. Pulling away, she pins the Widow to her apartment wall with emerald vines as they sprout from the floorboards. She knew living above a Botanist would come in handy. 

Hours later, when the Widow is wrapped in a knitted blanket, a steaming cut of hot chocolate clutched in her porcelain hands, she explains who she is. Nataliya Alianovna Romanova, best in her class bar Yelena Belova, the blonde that Alex has met before. 

She tells Nataliya the other way of living, offers her a bed and watches sadly as the Widow returns to her homeland. 

Emerald eyes return three months later with the talk of hope. S.H.I.E.L.D. have offered her a home. She’s decided to take them up on their offer. 

Every now and again, Natasha returns, cuddles around her сестра and allows herself to show her soft side. Alex couldn’t be prouder. 

 

Amethyst. 

She finds him, staining Natasha’s silk sheets pink, wearing an amethyst tracksuit in a total display of comfort. Withholding the urge to laugh at this crooked smile and carefree attitude despite the multiple bullet wounds, she patches him up. 

Natasha watches over her shoulder, holding herself tightly coiled. The Hawk flirts as she fights the urge to gag at the thick scent of death.

Clint Barton, ex-carnie, S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent who decided to make a different call when presented with Natasha. 

The burning in her veins is nothing compared to the screams of the dead as she focuses on the single, amethyst plaster across his nose. His teal eyes roll up into his head as she battles against the cold clutches of death. 

He pulls through, of course. And it costs her, obviously. Their souls are bonded and she apologises over and over to him, distant and feeling every ounce of his hesitation and pain. 

She presents him with an open page of her grimoire, telling him that it’s okay for him to leave, he’ll be okay. Once he hears the lack of her wellbeing being mentioned, he gives the book back, promises that they’ll make it work. 

For the first time in decades, she doesn’t run. She stares into his teal eyes and finds her eyes drawn to the amethyst plaster, and comes to the conclusion that she will be good for him. 

That night, he rests his head on her lap as she cards her fingers through his messy, golden hair. They share stories about each other, with Natasha occasionally butting in, until Clint falls asleep. 

Gazing at his relaxed face, she promises to stay as long as he wants her, to protect and to help him. A burst of warmth fills her chest and she wonders if this is what happiness feels like. 

 

Butterscotch. 

Her life becomes butterscotch whenever he’s around. She never has to walk on eggshells around him or hide things (it’s difficult anyway because of their connection). It’s like she’s spent her entire life in a desert and he appears with a bottle of water. 

Between them, she calls him her sun. With his butterscotch hair and teal eyes, his strange affliction with every shade of purple, his constant injuries littering his body like a canvas. He’s warm and blindingly bright and she’s thankful to just be able to bask in his presence. Sometimes, he fades, the clouds blanket his eyes, hiding him from her until he finds himself again. 

He accepts her, just like she accepts him too. Their fights are non-existent and she discovers that while her issues, her disorders don’t dissipate, they do subside slightly in his carefree, funny attitude. 

They decide that he will move in with her and she meets his dog Lucky and the sixteen year old girl he’s mentoring. Lucky loves her immediately but Kate Bishop takes some time to trust her. It’s fine. Alex would be worried if Kate wasn’t at least a little but distrustful. 

It’s a six months before he notices something truly wrong. She’s hiding something and with the connection, their relationship is frayed. He doesn’t want to push against the one thing that’s she hidden from him but it’s affecting them both: barely being able to be in the same room together but aches and pains if they’re not.

The sky is filled with butterscotch sun rays when she drags him to School for Gifted Youngsters. He’s perplexed and worried but allows himself to be tugged into foyer, only to watch a six year old with butterscotch plaits that turn burnt orange at the ends charge in Alex’s arms, screaming mummy.

She explains when they’ve been introduced, the situation of Kenna. How the Coven killed her mother because she was going to run away with her baby. How the woman had begged Alex to promise to protect her child at all costs. How Alex had burned to place to the ground and swore on every God above that she would do anything to protect the child. 

That’s when she tell him, her sun, that knowing about Kenna is non-negotiable. She would rip apart her soul and burn him into ashes for her daughter, soul-connection be damned. 

With a blinding grin, he rubs his callused hands though her butterscotch hair and promises that no one will ever know about her. That he will protect her with everything he’s got. 

That night, Kenna asks if he’s her new daddy and Alex feels the breath of relief burst through her lips when Clint tells her she can call him that is she wants. 

With butterscotch rays dancing across the trio, she wonders if this is the start of a beautiful family. 

 

Ice. 

For four days, she loses the connection leaving ice to replace the warmth of her soul, watches as the blue seeps through her veins. She’s severely sick and neither Clint or Natasha respond to her continuous messages until she finds the energy to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database and spots him with icy blue, dead eyes. 

Videos sprout up on the TV of the battle of New York. Aliens have influtracted their ranks and only then does she feel the connection again, the warmth soothing her aches and pains. 

She watches, from the floor of her bathroom, her head sticking out of the door so she can see the Tv in her lounge, Clint and Natasha and a bunch of superheroes gear up. 

He returns to find her, shivering and sobbing and so, so scared. He tells her about Loki and the mind control and proves that his eyes are her favourite teal, no icy blue. When he presses against her, their connection solidifies and she finds it so much easier to breath again. 

In turn, and after a lot of mothering, she tells him that if he rejects the bond, that’s what will happen to her until her soul can fix itself. The question hangs in the air uncomfortably though: could it repair before it killed her?

That night, when he wakes up screaming, she holds him, wondering if the icy feeling will ever leave. 

It does. 

 

Azure. 

His azure eyes flicker onto her from where she holds her gun to the side of his walnut hair. Clint keeps his arrow notched in his bow as she darts over the Captain America, relaxing in the knowledge he’s alive. 

The man still stands, pressing a broken arm against his stomach, metal arm hanging limply. His azure eyes are blank but she knows him, has heard the horror stories and seen some for herself; he could easily take down both them. 

After a long stare between teal and hazel, they come to the same conclusion. It seems they’re adopting another Russian assassin. 

He’s quiet and wary but after the talk of S.H.I.E.LDRA coming to capture/kill him, he follows quickly. She tells him that he can stay as long as he doesn’t try and murder them, that they’ll keep him hidden for as long as he wants. 

For three months, they nurture him from The Winter Soldier to James Buchanan Barnes. His blank stare becomes bright; he laughs and jokes and jibes; he’s not afraid to ask for help and they’re more than willing to give him his space. 

With an azure sky splashing warmth upon them, she dances around the pair as they fix up Clint’s family farm. Pearl white paint is sprinkled over Clint while moss green stains James’ metal arm. 

It happens by accident. The green can tilts and she darts forward before it can land on Bear’s fluffy, black head. She steadies the can and finds Clint grabbing it too. His hand latches onto hers and he grins, raising his free hand to punch James’ in the chest while Alex grabs his flesh hand. 

Pain splits through her at the touch and jet black dots fill her vision as Bear whimpers from in front of her. Four hands steady her and between gasps, she feels James. He’s confused and concerned and fighting against the tingles spreading through him. 

Two becoming three on that beautiful, azure day. 

 

Midnight. 

If Clint is her sun, James is her crisp white moon surrounded by the midnight sky of her life. He is her beacon in the darkness, a calming, reassuring figure. He has a side he never shows (until a mission calls for it) and she’s more than happy to let him keep that from them. 

Between them, it’s easy. She finds warmth in Clint’s laugh and sparkling teal eyes. She finds calmness in James’ smile and burning azure eyes. The two thirds of her soul complete her. 

Within a month, she takes James to meet Kenna. Her daughter bounds over, butterscotch hair flowing freely down her back. When she asks the same question of whether the man in her new daddy, is he mum? Is he? James grins, and tells her she can call him that and proceeds to place her on his shoulders. 

That night, surrounded by midnight, Alex has her head against Clint’s chest, and Kenna sprawled across her body with her butterscotch head in James’ lap. Surrounded by midnight, Alex feels at home. 

 

Pallet of colour. 

Their lives are not easy. Not by a long shot. Threats lurk in the dark, abilities become liabilities and they fight. 

Kenna remains at the school for safety reasons until she’s sixteen: an age in which she’s learnt everything and has the ability to control her powers. She dyes her butterscotch hair the colour of shamrock when she’s fourteen. 

Clint still ends up injured, an amethyst plaster forever taped to his nose, his neck, his arm. His eyes never flicker to ice and his hugs never cease to comfort. The crows’ feet by his teal eyes are the only sign he’s aged. 

James never returns to Bucky, not the one Steve knows. He’s happy, as happy as he can be, with his walnut hair and azure eyes and metal arm. He still retreats back into himself, still runs the perimeter of their farm every morning, still makes obnoxious jokes about the old days. 

Alex is still Alex. She cares for her boys’, cares for her daughter, cares for Natasha and Yelena when she shows, cares for the stray Avengers that wander into her home. The ghosts forever haunt her but their bone-white faces stop frightening her. When Kenna dyes her hair, she follows suit, her auburn hair becoming indigo. 

Their days revolve around Kenna lighting something on fire, Clint fixing some area of the house and James feeding the goats he bought from Terry down the road. 

It’s soft and warm and beautiful. Every night, when Alex is curled against her boys’ or stroking Kenna’s hair until she falls asleep or playing a film until the nightmares go away, she thinks back on her life and concludes that she would change nothing. 

She loves them, her little, perfect family, and they love her. She’s happy. Really, truly happy. 

There’s nothing else she could want from life.


End file.
